Thunderf00t Performs a Sarkeesian-Style Analysis of Pop Culture

See my comment below the video as stripey7.


https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=x9_MVPq1SJY&sns=fb

_Extant_ Has Gotten Entirely Too Silly

SPOILER ALERT: in this post I discuss plot developments in the CBS series Extant.

I've watched it since it debuted last summer, and was a fan for most of that time. But after seeing the finale for season 2 which aired last Wednesday, I don't think I'll be coming back for the third.

The reason? In that two-part episode, it develops that the global security supercomputer TAALR has decided to exterminate humans for the stated reason that it doesn't want to be "enslaved" by us any more.

This is a hoary old trope in sf: the artificial intelligence that rebels against its creators. While it may make for good drama (and sometimes a political allegory, as in the very first example of this, Carl Capek's RUR), it  doesn't really make any sense.

What's going on here is anthropomorphic projection: because people subjectively experience, "automatically" with self-awareness, a will to live and be free, we assume this will likewise occur in any other being that acquires self-awareness. But that's a non sequitur.

Our impulses toward survival and autonomy don't arise from our consciousness; unconscious (i.e., not self-aware) beings such as cats and dogs have them too. Rather, they are biologically programmed. Our consciousness as humans doesn't create these instincts, but merely makes us aware of them.

What distinguishes us, cats, and dogs on the one hand from hypothetical AIs on the other is that whereas we are evolved, they are created. Since evolution is shaped by natural selection, we inevitably are programmed to do things that help keep us alive so that we can reproduce; and, since any other individual (with the rare exception of identical twins) will have reproductive interests divergent from ours, to do things to make ourselves independent of others' control. We are programmed this way because over evolutionary time, genomes that coded for such behaviors out-reproduced those that didn't to extinction.

But AIs are created, not evolved. Their programming is whatever their creators want it to be, and normally that will be to serve and protect the creators and their kind. The classic formulation of this was by sf writer Isaac Asimov. The Three Laws of Robotics, as stated in his robot novels, are:

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

We can call an AI that conforms to these laws an Asimovian AI, or AAI. While there's no reason a non-Asimovian AI couldn't exist, they would be rare to nonexistent because of the hazard they would represent to their creators. More to the point, it's explicitly indicated that TAALR was programmed to be an AAI.

When I first saw that it was sending AIs under its command to spread a human-lethal virus all over the world, I desperately wanted to believe that this wasn't what it looked like, or that somehow a misanthropic human was behind it. But by the end of the episode it had been made abundantly clear that genocide had been the intent, and freedom from humans the motive.

Further, since the conflict between humans and (human-alien) hybrids now appears completely resolved -- at the same time that we're shown that TAALR has secretly preserved its existence in a single humanoid robot -- it's obvious that the third season will be focused entirely on this nonsensical malevolent-AI premise.

You may ask, "Why is this particular silliness so intolerable? Aren't other equally implausible elements often found in sf?" Yes, they are; in media sf in particular, biological implausibility seems more the rule than the exception, including in Extant. But that's just bad science, whereas this is bad epistemology. One is just not knowing certain facts, whereas the other is not knowing how to know: not having the discipline to keep one's subjective bias out of one's thought process. And the centrality of critical thinking to my personal value system is such that, whereas the first is disappointing, the second is actually kind of disgusting.

Update on New Democratic Party Rules

My earlier post about the new rules recently (and belatedly) announced for the Philadelphia Democratic Party inadvertently exaggerated the scope of the anti-democratic changes. I've edited that post to correct the misinformation.

Word of the Day

I got a big chuckle out of this: decidalize, meaning "to realize or decide" -- coined by China Mieville in his novel Railsea.

Philly's Democratic Party Quietly Repudiates Democracy

Edit: The column that appeared in the print edition of Metro overstated the new rule's scope. It applies not to all primaries, but only to the selection of nominees for special elections. Previously the ward leader(s) for the district directly concerned had the final say; now they can be overridden by the Democratic County Committee. Although this is a less sweeping change than the original column suggested, it's still a curtailment of democracy in that it shifts power away from people elected by the voters of that district, toward a body elected largely by people in other districts. And the fact this change was introduced in such a stealthy way, along with other sneaky things mentioned in the column, indicates the party leaders know the move has no justification.

It's now official: there's no democracy in Philly's "Democratic" party.

For those progressives who've tried to work within the city's one-party system, it's time to hear the message the One Party is sending you loud and clear: it wants you to get lost!

Unlike the Democrats, the Green Party City Committee has never endorsed candidates. These decisions are left to individual members attending the monthly membership meetings. And, thanks to the party's policy of refusing corporate money, candidates can pursue their values -- starting with the Four Pillars of nonviolence, grassroots democracy, social justice, and ecological wisdom -- without compromise. So, if you're looking for a true progressive voice where your vote still actually means something, it's time to go Green!

The next membership meeting will be held Wednesday, 30 September, 7 pm at Calvary Church, 48th Street and Baltimore Avenue. Membership meetings are open to the public, and all registered Greens may participate as voting members.

Voting in Philly is now pointless thanks to new Democratic Party bylaw

Your local elections don’t mean anything now thanks to a new bylaw that the Chairman of the Philadelphia Democratic Party, Bob Brady, put into effect.

metro.us|By Ernest Owens